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Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Skinny Mocha Cupcakes

On Mother's Day I cooked my family dinner and it was a great success. I also threw together a little dessert. It was something I knew my mom would love: Mocha Cupcakes. I already mentioned my Mommy's love of coffee and chocolate, something we both share, so this seemed like a great dessert. She loved it and then she shared them with other moms around us. My mom took some to work with her and to our neighbors and the cupcakes were a huge hit. In fact, everyone has since been pestering me to get the recipe up on my blog so that they can make them!

I really loved how these cupcakes turned out. I used a recipe for the cake from Skinny Taste, a blog that I love because the recipes are slightly lighter, but are still so simple to make! Then, I found a fantastic recipe for a mocha buttercream over at Brown Eyed Baker. I adapted the recipes slightly to fit my mom's taste and then finally, I frosted them with my new cupcake decorating tools from my friend Mario. I am going to need to practice this whole "making-things-pretty" thing. Usually, I just slap on the frosting with a knife because it's not about looks, it's about taste. However, now that I have all these cool decorating tools, I'll need to refine my skills! They came out beautifully and tasted even better!

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 and prepare 24 cupcake wells.
2. In a large bowl, whisk flour, pudding powder, salt, baking powder, espresso powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, mix hot coffee with cocoa powder until cocoa powder dissolves. Slowly add in milk and vanilla. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, combine oil and sugar. Mix well to combine. Add in the applesauce and mix to combine. Then, add egg and egg whites and mix until incorporated.
5. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the coffee mixture to the oil/sugar mixture. Start and end with the dry ingredients. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture, then half of the coffee mixture, then another 1/3 of the flour, 1/2 of the coffee, and finally the last 1/3 of the flour. Mix until just incorporated. Finally, stir in the greek yogurt until just combined.
6. Fill the cupcake wells with the batter about 1/2-2/3 full and bake for 25-30 minutes. Let cool completely.
7. Make the frosting: beat the butter at a high speed for about 5 minutes. Butter should be extremely light at fluffy. In the meantime, combine the vanilla and espresso powder in a small bowl until espresso is dissolved. Then, slowly add the powdered sugar to the butter and beat at a lower speed to combine. I used way less sugar than the original recipe, so just add enough to fit your taste preference and to get the desired consistency. Finally, beat in the vanilla/espresso. Beat on high for another few minutes until frosting is fluffy. Frost your cupcakes!
Enjoy :)

22 comments:

Ha-I just had a german guy comment on google +-it does not look that good, but I bet it is delicious! Kind of a back handed comment, but there may be a language problem there as well.Anyhow, that list of ingredients in those cupcakes tells me that these were moist and tasty! Also you did a great job for just starting out with decorating tools. I am sure that your mother was delighted with these. Have a great day!

I'm going to feature this in my blog's daily foodporn list called "Daily Foodporn For Your Inspiration". Check it out. You might get to find a new cooking and food blogs too. Don't worry, I will definitely link back here.